According to M. Chevalier, if the price of any kind of
merchandise whatever is increased, other kinds will rise in a
like proportion, and no one will benefit thereby.
This argument, which the economists have rehearsed for more than
a century, is as false as it is old, and it belonged to M.
Chevalier, as an engineer, to rectify the economic tradition.
The salary of a head clerk being ten francs per day, and the
wages of a workingman four, if the income of each is increased
five francs, the ratio of their fortunes, which was formerly as
one hundred to forty, will be thereafter as one hundred to sixty.
The increase of wages, necessarily taking place by addition and
not by proportion, would be, therefore, an excellent method of
equalization; and the economists would deserve to have thrown
back at them by the socialists the reproach of ignorance which
they have bestowed upon them at random.
But I say that such an increase is impossible, and that the
supposition is absurd: for, as M. Chevalier has shown very
clearly elsewhere, the figure which indicates the price of the
day's labor is only an algebraic exponent without effect on the
reality: and that which it is necessary first to endeavor to
increase, while correcting the inequalities of distribution, is
not the monetary expression, but the quantity of products.
Pages:
227
228
229
230
231
232
233
234
235
236
237
238
239
240
241
242
243
244
245
246
247
248
249
250
251